Pacific Overtures

[Fantod]

Posted: 1/31/15 at 6:53pm

So I just finished listening to the original cast album and to my surprise I found that I liked it quite a bit. I particularly like the songs There is No Other Way and Pretty Lady. This brings the number of Sondheim scores I really like up to 3. Would anybody care to comment on the original production or any subsequent revivals to describe how good the show is? Thanks.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 1/31/15 at 7:13pm

I wasn't in NYC to see the original, but I loved the off-Broadway revival at the Promenade. The intimacy only made the book and score clearer, and proved the show does not require the extraordinary production values of the original to work.

This is NOT intended as a put down of the original. I've seen photos and clips and it looks gorgeous!

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 1/31/15 at 7:14pm

Sadly I've never seen it live but I love the score to pieces. I have seen the OBC video though (which you should definitely look up on YouTube if you haven't already) and the original production seems to have been stunning, though the book scenes drag for me and the second act is kind of just a bunch of stuff.

Updated On: 1/31/15 at 07:14 PM

[JBroadway]

Posted: 1/31/15 at 7:16pm

I've seen the professionally filmed version of the original production, and my main impression of the overall show was that it was incredibly weird. The staging and the design seemed pretty cool, but there's nothing special about the book in my opinion.

However I totally agree with you about the score. I didn't think it was very good when I first listened to it, but I revisited it a few years later and found it to be quite brilliant and nuanced.

EDIT: Haha, looks like Nowack and I are on pretty much the same page Updated On: 1/31/15 at 07:16 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 1/31/15 at 7:29pm

Perhaps the production obscured the book. Although it was no thriller, I found every scene riveting at the Promenade. I'm sure it helped to see faces clearly in order to keep the characters straight.

[EthelMae]

Posted: 1/31/15 at 8:30pm

I saw the original 17 times. I loved it! Every time I went to the Winter Garden, I was transported to another place and time. So many of that cast are gone now-some tragically young.

Also saw the OB production and the Roundabout production. Never the same as the first time but did appreciate both productions.

[tazber]

Posted: 1/31/15 at 8:47pm

I love this show to pieces.

It is weird. And beautiful and daring.

As someone mentioned the original Broadway production is on youtube.

Chrysanthemum Tea is one of those really great songs that isn't widely covered and generally not discussed, but it is a gem in a score of riches.

Updated On: 1/31/15 at 08:47 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 1/31/15 at 9:30pm

I couldn't agree more about "Chrysanthemum Tea"! A perfect example of why Sondheim's minimalist music so perfectly complements his complex lyrics.

[After Eight]

Posted: 1/31/15 at 10:07pm

It was a heavy-handed, pretentious bore. What a trial to sit through! The poor audience really took it on the chin with that one.

Someone in a Tree was particularly irritating as an example of endless, repetitive self-indulgence.

The rest of the score was wan, pallid, enervated and enervating.

The design was the only good thing about it.

[Showface]

Posted: 1/31/15 at 10:09pm

^You've said many times you do not like any of Sondheim's works...why buy tickets sit through any of them if you do not like it?


Anyway, I haven't seen it...I have not really had the interest to...maybe I should check it out!

[morosco]

Posted: 1/31/15 at 10:16pm

Pacific Overtures - The Complete Original Production

[somechrysanthemumtea]

Posted: 1/31/15 at 10:31pm

I love it. So much.

The design of the OBC is pretty much phenomenal, and the sets and costumes are wonderful.

I love both productions Broadway productions, and many peoples opinions differ on which one they prefer, I personally prefer the OBC as I think that is greatly put on. The Roundabout one, from clips I've seen, didn't look too bad. But the orchestrations are sadly minimised for the Revival.

The book drags a bit, but the score and the acting of the OBC make up for it.

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 1/31/15 at 10:45pm

Thanks After Eight! It's really helpful to have someone who has met every person who has seen every Broadway show so we can know how much of a trial it was for each and every one of them to sit through Pacific Overtures! And "Someone In A Tree" is one of the best songs written in theatre - EVER.

Anyways, the score is ravishing. Sondheim is incredible at making his scores transport you to another place and time. "Please Hello" is pure magic, as is the thrilling staging of "A Bowler Hat". And if you've heard the original "Chrysanthemum Tea", you understand just how brilliant the final version is.

This brings me to one of the things I find most interesting in theatre. Clive Barnes was a reviewer at The New York Times during the runs of "Company", 'Follies", "A Little Night Music", and "Pacific Overtures". His review for "Company" was actually very good for saying he didn't like it. He repeatedly said how much he thought others would love it and how it deserved to win the Tony Award for best musical. His "Follies" review is much more critical, dispite him saying that he liked it more than "Company. However, "A Little Night Music" received a rave. Clive had said that he believed Sondheim was the best Lyricist in theatre, but "Night Music" made him up it to best composer. He raved over the "orgy of waltzes" and the class and sophistication of the operetta. Then, his review for "Pacific Overtures" came out. I personally find "Pacific Overtures" a much harder work to get into than "Company" and "Follies" - and even my close friends who adore Sondheim, do not appreciate the show. Clive Barnes, however, found it extraordinarily ambitious and gave it a very good review - he felt the score was fantastic, but believed the book to be lackluster and the ending to be from another show. This is interesting in that it seems his love of "Night Music" opened his mind to Sondheim's other shows, and allowed him to fully appreciate them. Would you expect someone how rather disliked "Company" and "Follies" to proclaim "Passion" as "Just plain wonderful. This is the most thrilling piece of theatre on Broadway."? That's what I adore about Sondheim - he writes such different pieces that allow different people to discover his works. It's amazing that this man composed "Company", "Sunday In the Park With George", Into the Woods", and "Passion", when they each seem like pieces different teams would adapt.

[Fantod]

Posted: 1/31/15 at 10:58pm

Well I also am turned off by Company and Follies (I really really want to like Follies but I just can't) but think A Little Night Music is a pretty perfect show (the score is great too, though there aren't any individual numbers that I absolutely love). I now really like the Pacific Overtures score. Sweeney Todd is good not great in the theatre, though in no way would I want to listen to any of the music at home. Merrily We Roll Along is good drama in its revised version, but a lot of the score isn't so good. Our Time is a great song. I still dislike every Sondheim show after he ended his work with Hal Prince (Sunday, Into the Woods, Passion, The Frogs, Road Show, Assassins). Forum is comedic brilliance with bland music and his lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy are perfect, and his Do I Hear a Waltz? lyrics just don't blend with Rodgers music.
I guess I'm not a Sondheim fan, but I like some of his work. You have to give me credit for familiarizing myself with his work instead of refusing to just because I don't like some of his work.
Sorry, this isn't really the thread for this comment, but I wanted to get my thoughts down. Updated On: 1/31/15 at 10:58 PM

[HorseTears]

Posted: 2/1/15 at 2:20am

One of my absolutely favorite Sondheim scores. Nearly every number is like a mini play unto itself. And it's quite astonishing to think that such an odd, daring and authentically cast musical was produced on such a scale on Broadway. This would never happen today. Never. What an incredible stretch Sondheim and Prince had in the 70s.

Did any of the original cast go on to have enduring careers in the theatre?

[After Eight]

Posted: 2/1/15 at 7:15am

They should have billed it as the perfect snob hit musical.

Except it wasn't a hit.

I guess there just weren't enough snobs to make it a hit, or enough to make a snob musical a hit. There were certainly enough snobs to have made many a snob play a hit down through the years -- to the misfortune and misery of the rest of us! Maybe a musical has insufficient snob cachet for snobs. Though there seemed to be more than enough of it in Sunday in the Park With George!

To all of those who missed the original production of Pacific Overtures: : You should have seen the deadened expressions of the people staggering out of the theatre after it ended. It looked as if they had just finished a ten hour trek across the steppes of Siberia.

[After Eight]

Posted: 2/1/15 at 7:30am

"Sondheim's minimalist music"

"Complex lyrics"

Ha, ha, ha. We now can add two more words to the list of coded theatre terms.

Minimalist=. Minimal pleasure!

Complex= Strained, self-indulgent, and self-congratulatory.


And yet two more! This thread alone could provide enough of them to fill an entire dictionary!

"odd, daring."

Odd= Audience, beware. You are in for it.

Daring= Audience, double beware. You are REALLY in for it! Updated On: 2/1/15 at 07:30 AM

[broadwaybabywannabe2]

Posted: 2/1/15 at 8:11am

i saw both the original production and the revival at the Promenade years later...i loved the Promenade production because of the intimacy of the house it was in...while i like the original very much it was not an "audience" pleasing musical...more like something you would appreciate like a painting in a good museum...but...the week i saw it in it's original staging was the very same week i saw A CHORUS LINE and CHICAGO...(with LIZA no less as ROXIE HART!)...so really anything would pale by comparison with these two giant musicals...and i saw all three the week when they were all up for BEST MUSICAL at the tonys...

Updated On: 2/1/15 at 08:11 AM

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 2/1/15 at 12:58pm

I love this show's score, and I love what the book is trying to do but I think it needs to be either more grounded or more abstract. The original production reminds me a bit of Cabaret - trying to do something sort of daring and new but still struggling to get out from under the trappings of traditional musical stylings. It'd be great to see a new, vivid production with really sharp, precise staging and lighting, it seems like it needs to be as lean as possible to really get its teeth into the audience and make its two-pronged cultural indictments work.

Amazing score, anyhow. Someone in a Tree is the obvious classic (I'd love to hear it live someday with a nice big orchestra) but the dark comedy numbers are just killer.

[JayG 2]

Posted: 2/1/15 at 1:29pm

A brilliant score - period.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 2/1/15 at 2:12pm

I think the music is some of Sondheim's most gorgeous. The filmed for NHK production is on youtube in a pretty good copy and I think the show holds up remarkably well. A gorgeous production of a moving show even though I find the second act doesn't work as well as the first.

[Demitri2]

Posted: 2/1/15 at 2:16pm

PACIFIC OVERTURES was one of the few opening nights I've attended. I was in NY in 1976 for a week and was surprised when I asked for a ticket at the box office pre-opening and was told, "How about opening night?'" It's the only show I can remember where the audience was unresponsive when the show ended. Gradually you heard faint applause build slowly which died out quickly. I remember running into the ever effervescent Broadway veteran Lisa Kirk as I exited who looked at me and said, "What was that?!?!" It seems Broadway audiences of that era just weren't ready for PACIFIC OVERTURES thus accounting for its short six month run. In 1979 I saw an extremely scaled down version in Los Angeles at the East West Players Theatre starring the show's original star Mako. Yes, Boris Aronson's original sets were beautiful to behold but in a strange way the show worked and took on a whole new light.

[After Eight]

Posted: 2/1/15 at 5:24pm

"Broadway audiences of that era just weren't ready for PACIFIC OVERTURES"

Broadway audiences of all eras reject bad shows.

Isn't it funny how in all these threads about these megabomb bores, the voices of the vast general public --- save with perhaps one exception --- are never heard?

The unknowing would think that these were all masterpieces from start to finish, and that everyone in the audience was enraptured by every word and note.

If only they knew!







Updated On: 2/1/15 at 05:24 PM

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 2/1/15 at 5:34pm

Diff'rent strokes AfterEight my dear friend.

Your dramatic reiterations of the multitudes staggering aghast out of Sondheim shows never fail to amuse me.

[After Eight]

Posted: 2/1/15 at 5:55pm

"Diff'rent strokes "

You'd never know that here.

"Your dramatic reiterations of the multitudes staggering aghast out of Sondheim shows never fail to amuse me."

The audiences didn't seem similarly amused. Updated On: 2/1/15 at 05:55 PM